My current work-in-progress follows Petra’s story. Here’s an excerpt from book 2 of the A Trespass of Angels series, Sins of the Fallen , with the usual disclaimer that it is unedited and subject to change.  It continues on from the previous excerpt.

A command cracks across the small oasis like a whip. “Ruhū ‘an tariqihā. Kara!”

The women cease arguing and the crowd parts just enough for a man to push his way through, his brow furrowed, his sleeves rolled up, a dark smudge of oil across one arm. A hammer hangs from his belt. His voice is stern, his Arabic slower than theirs as he clearly addresses the woman and the crowd, not Petra. “Hadhi al-mar’a ma’ī. Tatrukūhā.”

Doubt seeps in, voices falter. Some move away to resume their own business. A few watch Petra a little longer as the man approaches her, saying in low, accented English. 

“You’ve made quite an impression. Here.” He hands her a waterskin and she takes it with a grateful sigh.

“Thank you.” 

She squeezes the warm water into her mouth. It tastes as precious as diamonds. She feels the man studying her as she drinks, taking in her clothing, her naked hair, her shoes. When she hands back the skin, he fastens it to his belt without taking his eyes from her. 

“Walk with me.” He turns away from the well and Petra follows, nearly tripping over a small girl with a dirty face who stares up at her in open curiosity. 

“Ahlaan,” Petra says gently, greeting the child. 

In answer, the little girl lifts her hand and shows a fig she is holding. It is a little bruised and worse-for-wear, but it’s food. Petra’s mouth waters, but even more impactfully, the girl reminds Petra of Maria. For a moment, her heart aches. Then the girl shoves the fruit into Petra’s hand and scampers away, giggling.

The man hasn’t slowed down, and Petra jogs to catch up to him, smiling as she takes a bite of the fig. Sweetness explodes across her tongue, and it is amazing what the flavor does to lift her hopes. Maybe, just maybe, she won’t die here in the desert, as dried out as that mummy she unearthed in the Sahara.

The man with the hammer leads her to a wagon; the nicest one in the caravan, Petra notes. As she swallows the last of the fig, and they step into the shade, she studies her savior for the first time. He’s a man made of angles; tall but not imposing, lean and long-limbed, like he never quite finished filling out his frame. His nose, forearms, and the backs of his hands are sunburnt. He has pink-toned skin, rather than the olive of the rest of the caravan. Petra suspects that sunburnt is his daily state of life—in spite of his sagging canvas hat—never quite recovering fully from the constant bombardment of sunshine. His laugh lines look carved into his face, the result of years of squinting into the Levantine sun. His face is narrow and sharp, with a blade-straight nose and cheekbones that make him look stern, although his blue-grey eyes are kind. He has a reddish beard, but it is neatly trimmed. When he takes off his hat to wipe his brow, she sees that his hair is dark blond with a hint of copper, sun-bleached and flattened to his skull. He rubs a hand through it then opens a trunk sitting at the back of his wagon, which smells of metal, cedar shavings, and there’s a faint trace of oil. Gears and tools are strung from hooks along the inner wall of his wagon. A half-dismantled oil lamp sits on a tarp. 

He rifles through his trunk and pulls out a small wooden box with a metal clasp. He opens it, and inside are folded bits of fabric of all types and prints. He rifles through them and pulls out a folded swatch of something thin, and gunmetal grey. He hands it to her.

“You’d better cover your hair. They think you’re a demon.” His lips twitch. “Or worse, a tax collector.”

Petra thanks him—torn between laughter and tears at being pegged as a demon—and loosely swathes her head in the fabric, tossing the end over one shoulder like a forties movie star. She has no idea how to tie it the way the other ladies do. 

“You’re a mechanic,” she says, gesturing to the equipment. “What do you fix?”

“Mostly engines, but really, anything and everything. Why do you think I stepped in on your behalf?” He looks at her feet, her jumpsuit. “You’re not from here, that’s obvious. You speak English, but you don’t sound British, and not quite American either.”

He waits a beat for Petra to fill in some details.

She takes a breath, her mind racing. “I’m… Canadian.”

She can tell by his expression that he’s heard of it. So… she is post-1867 Dominion formation, she knows that much now. How else can she learn what year it is without alarming him completely?

“What is your name?” she asks.

“You first,” he replies with a half-smile, his gentle gaze probing.

“I’m Annie,” she says softly, making a calculated decision to extend her hand, something that was probably not done in this time—whenever this is—but that will tell her something of him. She needs an ally, and needs to know if he could be that for her.

He blinks at her, hesitating, then looks at her outstretched hand for a beat too long. She can’t read his mind, but his expression says enough; he is trying to calculate whether making physical contact with her is foolish or necessary. She likes that he doesn’t glance around to see who is watching. He is a man who doesn’t overly care what others think. That could be helpful. Still, while his eyes are not hostile, neither are they trusting. He seems more curious than anything else. When he takes her hand. she allows a small smile to reach her face, relieved.

“Johann Meiers,” he says, releasing her hand quickly after a simple pump with dry, calloused fingers. He pulls a crate out of the back of his wagon and sets in on the ground. “Sit, Fräulin Annie.”

There’s a buzz of voices at the well, casual talk, relaxed sounding. Petra still gets the odd glance, but the caravan is back to the business of their everyday life. The canvas door over the rear of Johann’s wagon flaps in a gentle breeze as he pulls out another crate and a lumpy fabric sack. He sits down beside her then opens the sack and offers her the dates that are inside. She takes one, thanking him.

“What are you doing out here in the wilderness?” 

She takes a bite of the date, slowly, to give herself time to think. It’s better if she presents as an orphan—which is true to life—but still someone with family, so she is less vulnerable. 

“I came east with my… uncle,” she says, inventing as she goes. “He’s—” she exhales, letting a tremor enter her voice, “—an archaeologist. Holy sites. There were some… dangerous nomads. We became separated, and unfortunately, I got lost.” She puts a hitch in her throat and covers her mouth with her hand, leaving her story there. Let him assume she’s an emotional female, then maybe he’ll be too polite to pry, but empathetic enough to help.

Johann weighs her words, looking as though he’s not sure he should believe her. “You don’t speak Arabic well.”

“That’s true,” she says with a regretful sigh. “I’ve only studied phrases. I was never meant to be anywhere on my own.”

“Yet, here you are. On foot. No caravan, no guide, no proper clothing. Not even any water skin. You have no idea which direction your party might have gone?”

She shakes her head. “I’ve gotten utterly turned around, I’m afraid.”

For a moment, silence stretches between them. He shifts, his eyes narrowing on her getup again. “What are you wearing?”

“Oh.” Petra looks down at herself, faking a realization, as though it never occurred to her that someone might find her clothing odd. “My uncle had these shoes and this one-piece suit made for me. He has some odd ideas, but they are practical. He has never cared for propriety. These are easier for traveling, easier to clean, easier to do my dig duties than in a robe or a dress. The shoes were made in Canada. They must look very strange to your eyes, but a lot of people wear them there. They are good for walking, and quite comfortable.”

Johann exhales through his nose as she pops the rest of her date in her mouth, keeping her expression innocent. 

There’s a break in the conversation while he absorbs her story, still not sure whether she’s trustworthy. Petra’s mind goes like a computer, sifting through what she knows about major events that occurred post 1867 in the middle east. Johann is going to start asking questions, but it’s better if she asks hers first and keeps him distracted. She needs to figure out when she is, and where. 

He rubs a thumb across his jaw, his beard rasping. “You’re lucky you found us, and you’re even luckier that I speak English.”

“Yes. Very lucky,” she agrees. She swallows and takes another date from the sack he holds between them. “Where is the caravan headed, Johann?” 

“Haifa,” he says, then adds, “We’ll arrive tomorrow evening, if the wheels hold.”

Haifa. The clothes, the rifles, the language, Johann himself—a German colonist, she presumes. The camels. She catalogues the details, catching them like falling drops of rain. Ottoman Haifa. She is in Palestine. Way before Israel becomes a nation in 1948. Her heart beats faster. But how much before? She has to be careful. She can’t just ask him what year it is. The last thing she needs is to end up in an asylum.

“In Haifa,” she says slowly, “—is there someone I might get help from? A place I can go for aid?” She watches him closely. Every word matters. 

“Aid?” He scoffs. “There’s the Ottoman officials, if you want worse trouble than you’re already in. We Germans have a colony there. And there are some mission schools where you’ll find some British English. You’ll be more likely to find a sympathetic ear there. Your father was digging, you said?”

“Not yet. We were in the research phase still, there was no determined location. I was… just assisting. How far is the German colony from the port?” she asks, feigning mild curiosity but hanging on his every word, every twitch in his face.

“Not far. Why?”

“I think my uncle may have colleagues in Haifa… I might inquire there.” She clears her throat, latching onto something that she remembers about the German Templars. “When was your colony founded?”

He waves a hand. “Decades ago. Before my time. Some sixty years now, more or less.”

She nods. She’s pretty sure the Templars settled in Haifa around 1870, but she needs more. She sifts through the history she can remember, grasping at events, factoids, dates, key developments in the region.

“We arrived by ship,” she says, “but I hear the railways here are expanding very quickly.”

Johann nods with something like pride sparking in his eyes. “The branch just reached Haifa this year. The Germans helped design some of it, of course.”

This year… but what year did the Hejaz Railway reach Haifa? Surely it was after 1900. Sultan Abdulhamid II initiated a number of reforms during the time the railway was being built—especially over Arab provinces. Things like improved transportation and communication, water sanitation, basic health services, and funding language schools.

“And the Sultan?” Petra pries, “His reforms must have made your work easier?”

Johann snorts, but like a man who is on the edge of settling into conversation with a crony. “If you call new taxes and conscription easier. But yes, it’s quieter than before.”

It’s quiet. The railway has reached Haifa, and she’s not landed during the Great War, so she’s definitely pre-1914. Nor is she after the Young Turks; a revolutionary movement inside the Ottoman Empire, staged in 1908. The region is stable, for now.

“That’s good to hear. My father was worried when we left, with all the talk of Russian tensions.”

“Not here. The Russians are fighting the Japanese now, farther east.”

She nods, making more calculations. The Russo-Japanese war is at play. That narrows it down considerably. She’s landed either in 1904 or 1905, but… pieces, that’s all she has to work with. Shards, fleeting references. She searches for a way to narrow it even further, but fails to form a question that would reveal more. She is in a world on the edge of a sharp collapse, but it is not yet broken. The Ottoman Empire is still in place, before the Mandate, before the wars. Before the maps redraw themselves in blood and oil. Her skin flushes with gooseflesh in spite of the heat. This world doesn’t know what is coming. Her breath slows, her pulse tightens into a steady drumbeat behind her ribs. She thinks about Alistair Graves. His grandfather found the Watcher Stele in 1903. If that was accurate, it has already been discovered, maybe even already shipped to Britain. Graves also claimed that the group who thought they’d discovered Enoch’s vault were lost in an earthquake in 1906. She looks away from Johann, across the rolling hills of rock and scrub. She doesn’t want him to see the excitement and turmoil that has sparked inside her. She has landed after the discovery of the Watcher Stele, but before the earthquake of 1906. She rubs her lips with the back of her hand to cover whatever expression her mouth is making, she might even feel a smile.

This is no coincidence. She chose this time and place. Subconsciously, yes, but she chose it. She has landed exactly where and when she needs to be in order to continue her mission. No more dusty texts or creeping through the security systems of ancient, super-secure libraries in sandstorm form. No more Jesse, either, but that must be, for now. She will find a way back to him. She has no idea how, but she will. Right now, she is in the era relevant to her own history, in the flesh. She is exactly where she needs to be, but she also faces the greatest challenge she’s ever faced. No powers. No Jesse. No allies. Johann can get her to Haifa—assuming he’ll let her tag along out of pity—but after that she’ll be on her own. She has her wits and nothing else, but she is alive, breathing, and has an opportunity; not only to save a dig team from certain destruction, but—if she plays her hand perfectly—to be with them when they discover the very place that is meant to hold the Pillars of Lamech. Her objective solidifies: find the dig team, use any means necessary to join them, find the pillars, take a rubbing of their markings, then get out of that site and get everyone else out too, before it implodes. She has no idea the name of the man leading the Palestinian dig team, all she has is what Alistair told her back in his cottage in present-day Wheatley.

“What did you say your uncle’s name was?” Johann interrupts her thoughts as he takes a bite of a date.

She looks at him, hearing the voices rise and fall behind them like waves as she makes a split-second decision. 

“Graves,” she says. “My uncle is William Graves.”

 

 

If you love ancient conspiracies, fallen angel tech, and a heroine who’s just trying to do the right thing while everything falls apart—A Trespass of Angels is for you. This series blends urban fantasy pacing with supernatural thriller tension, layered with biblical lore, elemental magic, and one very loyal hacker who refuses to quit. Inspired by the apocrypha, powered by sarcasm, bad decisions, and divine fire. Perfect for readers who like their romance clean but their stakes cosmic.

Scheduled for release September 30, 2025.

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